


may we live long and die out

by sleepyvan



Category: The Creatures (Youtube RPF)
Genre: Drowning warning, M/M, Reincarnation AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:38:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4652544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyvan/pseuds/sleepyvan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reincarnation, as it turns out, means a lot of things. 1) You start to see the same asshole a lot, 2) you lose him every time, and 3) you never forget his smile. Aleks doesn't know how to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	may we live long and die out

**Author's Note:**

> Reincarnation AU. There will be more parts, hopefully.

The first time Aleks _(or the one, before)_ saw James _(his name, after)_ was on the battlefield.

He was the commander for an army, because of course he was. All that sureness, that dedication, that charm has swept its way through Greece like a mythical flood, drowning all that dare stand in his path. Some call him “Great,” and he acknowledged those claims with a shake of his head. These lands were earned with war. 

He saw him in the sun-warmed sands of Egypt, while his plans of a siege that day unfolding before him. In his peripheral vision, a group of hoplites danced. He turned, and squinted against the bright sun. 

A specific one was fooling with his muscle cuirass, lifting it around his body as if there was an itch. His fellow hoplites were laughing at him, pointing their spears toward his chest and giggling like children. Aleks opened his mouth to tell a general around him to discipline them, when the soldier whipped his helmet off, letting his dark curls tumble to his shoulders. Aleks’ complaint died on his tongue. He was beautiful, like a sculpture made flesh, well-built and sturdy. His eyes seemed to have seen things older than he was. He was surely a slayer of demons, breaker of hearts.

_(Aphrodite smiled from her golden cloud.)_

The snake that must have been forced into the soldier’s armor dropped to the ground and squirmed away. Sagging in relief, the soldier caught Aleks’ eye. His smile dropped from his beautiful face, and he held his helmet tight under his arm like he was scared. Scared of him. The others turned and caught sight of him, so flummoxed they tripped as they fell to their knees. The one soldier did the same, not breaking eye contact while he kneeled in respect. Aleks started moving forward towards him, wanting to greet him like an old friend, not knowing what he would do, but a general beside him rushed him on. 

After the entire, bloodsoaked battle, he scouted his entire cavalry looking for that soldier, but he had not found him. He must’ve died in the battle of that day. He went to bed that night covered in sweat, tossing and twisting. 

He saw that face again in dreams, where he was smiling at him, warm like the sands he stood on. He was made out of light, he was sure, and carved from the same copper his armor was. He never gave a name.

Aleks died in delusion, reaching for a man that he’d only seen once. He waited for darkness to take his agony away, and groaned a name he couldn’t remember. 

The next time he saw that man was on the wide deck of a ship. Aleks had been holding the arm of his fiancée, escorting her around the deck while she pointed out the views blandly. His clothes, slightly damp from the spray, clung to him uncomfortably. He glanced around the ship, looking for something else to break the proverbial ice field of stilted conversation, when he saw a man cover his head with his hands and groan near the bow. 

“Jordan, I told you this was a bad idea,” Aleks heard him mutter roughly, his Jersey-tinted accent making some words sound clipped. Jordan, who must be the man quivering beside him, nodded once before running towards the inside of the ship, his face green. Aleks felt a pull to the man still waiting on the dock, some familiar, undescribable feeling. 

Aleks turned to look at his fiancee, who was gazing at him questioningly. “Mary,” he pleaded, his arm unweaving from hers, “Can I meet you back for dinner? Say, 5?” 

Mary nodded, lifting her eyebrow but not following through with the obvious question. She turned and walked towards their cabin, her skirts swishing behind her. Aleks sighed, and turned back to the groaning man. 

He straightened his suit sleeves and strode forward confidently, trying to figure out what he was going to say. The man, seeing him, immediately scurried up with his hands out, seemingly to placate. 

“Look, mister, I didn’t mean to disrupt the public,” He said beseechingly, and Aleks cocked his head, confused. What did he mean? He looked down at his officer’s uniform, and nodded once. That’s what he meant. 

“I’m not an officer. Or at least, right now I’m not,” Aleks tried, but the man looked skeptical. “I am here to ride this boat to New York, and that’s it.” 

“Is that so? In your fancy cabins? I bet it feels much safer up there than down in C Class,” The man snorted, lowering his hands and turning back to the railing. Aleks saw an invitation, and quickly stepped beside the man. 

“The boat’s been described as "unsinkable,” Aleks comments, for nothing else other than filling the void with conversation. The other man snorted, his shirt riding up his muscular forearms.

“See, that’s what they want you to think. Then they fuckin’ get you,” The man jokes, looking at him finally. He’s got melty brown eyes that look older than his age suggests. His beard scrapes down his face, and as he smiles at his own joke, dimples carve up his cheeks. His dark curls are wild , and his shirt is slightly too small. Aleks feels a warmth in his chest that he hasn’t felt in what seems like millennia. He must look starstuck, because the man cocks his head in confusion. 

“Is something wrong?” He asks, and Aleks sputters. “Nothing. I’m Aleks, by the way,” He blurts, and James smiles again, gazing out into the sea ahead of him. Aleks is starting to love that smile. 

“James. It’s very nice to meet your acquaintance,” James reaches over to shake his head, no doubt as a joke, but his hand is calloused and warm when he returns the gesture, and Aleks relishes in the touch. He wants to get closer to him, to feel his warmth on the deck of this salt-spattered ship, but he settles for moving closer inch by inch. 

“Excuse me for asking, but I believe we’ve met before,” Aleks brings up, and James shrugs, looking back into the ocean. “Unless you’ve been in Irish casinos, I doubt it,” He says, but looks back at him carefully. “Unless you mean in my dreams.” 

Aleks laughs at that, full-body laughs he never makes, and James is basking in it. He shifts over closer to Aleks, and Aleks can’t believe it is this easy. It’s never this easy. 

They spend the day together, James showing off C Class and dancing him around the bar. He clings to him for dear life as James spins them around, laughing at his jokes as he yells them into the night air. He is only slightly taller as he pecks James on the cheek, and James spins him around and dips him, kissing him so deeply it feels like a romance novel. He misses his dinner with Mary, and ignores any sense of responsibility as James unbuttons his shirt in his room, button by button, so languishly slow that Aleks basks in the feeling of it, being wanted. 

James’ skin is warm, and Aleks draws circles and letters on his back, asking him to guess what the word is, and James brushes off his hands and kisses him again. Happiness radiates throughout his body like a sore. 

The alarms go off near midnight, and James' warm, calloused hand finds his as they stumble through rapidly filling corridors, ignoring the bursts of people that fight them to it. James punches a taller man down and Aleks smiles despite the cirumstance. 

“It’s unsinkable, remember!” James reminds him as they try to find a staircase to the upper decks. Aleks feels the world tilt under his feet, but keeps his hands sturdy and where they’re supposed to be. James leads them to another dead end, and he screams his frustration into the wood panels near the doors. He sits, and he cries, and Aleks kisses him until the water lap at their ankles. 

“I love you,” He whispers, as the water threatens their knees. “I love you too,” James whispers back, reverently, like a prayer. His hand grows cold as the water brushes over it. 

“Remember me, please,” Aleks pleads as the water nears their necks, and James kisses every knuckle of his hand. He cries. James is warm until he is cold, and then there is just blackness. 


End file.
